I’m not talking about big fights or burning bridges either. It can be such a gradual thing that you might not even notice it. You’re both growing as individuals, and, perhaps, you’re also growing apart.

I’ve had this gnawing feeling for some time about one person in particular that I don’t really understand them, that I can’t get excited about what they’re excited about – and I sort of suspect the reverse is also probably true. I can go back to the beginning of the friendship and identify one thing we had in common, and I wonder is that the thread everything hinges upon?

I see some of their interactions with other people, what we might call their ‘actual’ friends. Those people get it! They really do understand. They’re as excited as the individual in question and that excitement nudges each of them on to bigger and better things. All the while I’m sitting on the sidelines wondering what happened, and why it happened.

I feel a certain amount of wistfulness about this. But I’m not sure what I can do about it. The older I get – and man, I feel old – the more I realise it is better to accept things as they are, rather than to hold on to visions of how you wish they were. There’s integrity in accepting truth. Is this settling? Perhaps…

I studied Robert Frost in high school English. ‘The Road Not Taken’ is always cited as an inspirational poem about doing something unique, about being an individual. On some level that might be true. But you have to remember that the poem is called ‘The Road Not Taken’ not ‘I Took The Road Nobody Goes On; I’m So Badass.’ For me there is something so wistful about this poem. It’s about regret. It’s about acknowledging that you can’t do it all and have it all, that you have to make decisions and by definition those decisions choose certain things to the exclusion of others.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We ignore the sigh and go straight to ‘the difference.’ We read ‘the difference’ as ‘a vast improvement.’ But I don’t think that’s what Frost is getting at. It’s just different. He hasn’t traveled on that other road, he’ll never be in a position to compare and contrast them and decide which is better. And there will always be a part of him left wondering…

Essentially this man had lost his one chance at true love. Perhaps he didn’t realise that’s what it was in the moment that it happened, but in the hindsight of old age it seemed manifestly obvious. His lover was his only experience of love. Removed from his parents as a child and brought up by others, strangers, in a clinical unaffectionate way, he maintained he’d never been taught how to love another person or indeed himself.

I find it interesting that so many fishing analogies lend themselves to the language with which we address ideas relating to romantic love. We talk in terms of “the one that got away” (perhaps exaggerating the traits of the lover in the same way we might the traits of the fish), while reassuring ourselves that there are “plenty of fish in the sea.” And I think in some ways that is true – there are certainly a lot of people in the world. But that metaphor doesn’t really speak to the quality of the ‘fish’ and I wonder on some level if you can have many encounters with other people without finding a sincere connection.

And if that is true… what do we take from it? I know people who look upon dating as just another process. They might liken it to getting a job. You cast your net wide (erm, more fishing?) and see what happens. There’s a part of me that really thinks this is a terrible, deeply cynical idea, but other people swear by it. To them it’s a practical reality. And frankly how do you meet anyone without putting yourself out there in social situations?

I’m sure my thinking has been conditioned by a slew of romantic ballads, movies and television shows. Those romances that seem to surpass everything. It doesn’t seem to matter that those ballads are often sung by singers whose personal life is one grandiose (and highly publicised) trainwreck after another. It doesn’t seem to matter that the writers of many of those ballads were motivated more by their potential royalty cheque than adoration for any existing human being. Romeo and Juliet might be the greatest love story ever told for no better reason than the romance didn’t last long enough to meet the inevitable conflicts that occur in any relationship.

I started writing a response to your question here yesterday but it quickly deteriorated into a miserable lament and I realised I was rather pissed off at the world, and I wasn’t sure that that was how I wanted to portray myself online.

But at any rate, to give you the general dynamics of it, I wanted to be a rockstar. Waking up at 6am on the weekends to watch pop music videos on television probably planted the seed. And then I went through that obligatory teenage high school poetry thing, only at the time Tori Amos and Alanis Morisette were there in the background and I decided I wasn’t writing poetry, I was wrting lyrics. And it was this great exploration of my own emotional terrain. But I didn’t know much about music. I couldn’t make sense of it. I didn’t know how to make it work. I loved to sing but even this became a secretive activity after being criticised one too many times…

Eventually I borrowed this book on music theory and composition from the library. I decided I would spend the two weeks of school holidays I had around Easter and do nothing but study that book. And it helped. I think I made more headway in those two weeks than I had in the whole rest of my teenage existence… lol. And good things flowed out of it. I eventually created a multimedia CD-ROM with original lyrics, music (notated on computer and played back through the wonder of MIDI technology), photographs and even a little video. But I really struggled with bringing the music and lyrics together. I had this CD-ROM with lyrics and music, but none of it went together.

I actually studied music business management and audio production at a university level. I knew I didn’t have the chops to be a musician, but I wanted to be involved in that industry. And those studies were amazing… I’ll never regret doing it. But when I graduated I quickly discovered that opportunities were very limited and competition was fierce. Living (then) in the most expensive city in Australia and being told that I might have to work on a ‘trial’ basis for six months for no pay was not the most inspirational thing. So I returned to my home town and took the first job I was offered, something completely unrelated to that industry.

I guess I still feel kind of foolish about the whole thing. In the words of Sophie B. Hawkins, “I try too hard and then I give up way too easily.” I get so easily discouraged. I devote so much time and space on my blog to inspirational encouraging things because I’m trying to pysche myself up to try things.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, I suppose. I’ve been improvising and playing at this keyboard for years now and I have improved dramatically. I bought a little Yamaha USB Audiogram 6 mixer so I can record things on the computer. And every now and then I’ll sit down and write something. Through the Internet it is easy to share things (say on SoundCloud or YouTube).

Where there’s life, there’s hope (I hope).

Jacobs had some great things to say on a range of subjects but there’s one I really wanted to zero in on and look at today, because – as long time readers will know – it is something I’ve been preoccupied with for a really long time. Specifically, when evaluating the Bible as a religious text, how do you negiotate which things are most imperative and which are dispensable?

I always think of that line Ned Flanders delivers in The Simpsons:

I’ve followed everything it says in the bible – even those bits that contradict the other bits.

A. J. Jacobs:

And finally I learned that thou shall pick and choose. And this one I learned because I tried to follow everything in the Bible. And I failed miserably. Because you can’t. You have to pick and choose, and anyone who follows the Bible is going to be picking and choosing. The key is to pick and choose the right parts. There’s the phrase called cafeteria religion, and the fundamentalists will use it in a denigrating way, and they’ll say, “Oh, it’s just cafeteria religion. You’re just picking and choosing.” But my argument is, “What’s wrong with cafeterias?” I’ve had some great meals at cafeterias. I’ve also had some meals that make me want to dry heave. So, it’s about choosing the parts of the Bible about compassion, about tolerance, about loving your neighbor, as opposed to the parts about homosexuality is a sin, or intolerance, or violence, which are very much in the Bible as well. So if we are to find any meaning in this book, then we have to really engage it, and wrestle with it.

In the talk Jacobs compares the Bible to Wikipedia, in the sense that it has “all of these authors and editors over hundreds of years. And it’s sort of evolved. It’s not a book that was written and came down from on high.” He notes too the approach of the Red Letter Christians, those who emphasise the words apparently spoken by Jesus Christ over the contribution of those other authors and editors.

So how do you wrestle with a religious text if you can’t take it literally? And what’s so great about literal interpretations anyway? Can you practice a religion without adhering to the traditional norms and practice of that religion?

Mona Eltahawy, speaking to Rachael Kohn on The Spirit Of Things, explored the perceived relationship between conservatism and authencity.

Mona Eltahawy:

I think also at the heart of this argument is this idea that conservative equals authentic, and that the more conservative you are, the better of whatever religion you are. And I oppose this idea vigorously because I’m a liberal Muslim and I’m also an authentic Muslim. But the kind of Muslim you see in the media is always the conservative Muslim who wants to speak for me. So it’s always the man who has a long beard and very, very severe and very strict, and the more covered up the woman is, the more authentic she must be. Well I am not covered up and I am a Muslim, and I demand to be taken seriously as a Muslim.

Something to think about. So how do you pick and choose?

Happy Sunday.

In the movie, the lesson is ultimately to be yourself. Everything blows up in their faces as Romy and Michele pretend to be successful business women (having invented Post-It Notes, no less). When their facade is removed, they decide to be themselves. They decide to confront the people who made them miserable. The whole social dynamic has changed. And everything works out happily-ever-after in true Hollywood style…

I’m not sure things will necessarily work out as well for you and I if we embrace our true selves. (Though it would be nice if some old high school colleague, now a millionaire, was romantically pining for me.) But it really speaks to the energy – mental, physical, emotional – that goes into keeping up appearances and constantly evaluating yourself from the vantage points of others.

I probably would’ve gone to my ten year high school reunion had I been able to impress people. And again you sort of have to wonder what the drive is to want to impress people you don’t even like…

I guess people are always casting expectations upon us. Sometimes we shake them off, sometimes we internalise them. We want to prove to others – but especially to ourselves – that the unkind aspersions are indeed untrue. Our concept of self can be a little murky. We might not be certain that it is untrue. We hope it is untrue. Our ego wants to demonstrate for all and sundry that is untrue. But what if (gasp) it isn’t…?

That doubt can make us crazy, and that doubt can be used to leavage us by unscrupulous people. Remember Romy and Michele didn’t look foolish being themselves, they only looked foolish when they felt so inadequate that they misrepresented themselves and were shown to be untrue.

A lot of ’stuff’ is attached to social standing, to popularity. What does it ‘mean’ to be popular? What does it mean if you aren’t, or weren’t? What does that say about you? Of course it could mean anything you want it to mean. And it some ways it doesn’t matter what it means, or what you decide it means. It doesn’t have to have an obvious conclusion. It just has to introduce enough doubt to make you crazy. It just has to make you doubt your likability just that little bit.

So maybe it isn’t about proving them wrong. Perhaps it’s about affirming for yourself that you’re a worthwhile human being. It’s not that their opinion is particularly important, it’s just that that’s the origin of the doubt you’re trying to reconcile.

Yes, Mr. Whitaker
I hear what you’re saying
Lincoln is a torment
and a tyrant
but I thought you knew what I meant
When I said,
“A person’s worth is not their weight in gold.”
Don’t you ever ever look beyond anything you’re told?

And if I’m such a redneck, what does that make you?
And if I’m such a redneck, what do you suggest that I do?
And if I’m such a hassle, why not just give me up?
If you don’t care about me
you shouldn’t give a fuck

And those eyes
they used to frighten me
But now I’m lost in a daze
And I’m taken away
And I can’t stand your expectations
I won’t handle another rejection
So I’m leaving, yeah I’m leaving
goodbye and good luck
You don’t care about me
you shouldn’t give a fuck.

Yes, Mr. Whitaker by johnlacey

Two thoughts occur to me listening to this some years later.

Firstly, the song sounds exactly how I imagined it should when I scribbled down the lyrics. I mean, of course I imagined it with some sort of piano underneath it. But the rhythm and melody is just as I hallucinated it as I wrote. [Music had always been something I struggled with. And for a long time I was obstensibly a 'poet' because I couldn't make sense of music at all. I didn't know how to translate what I was hearing into something I - or someone else - could perform.]

Secondly, my voice sounds pretty good. Infact my voice seems to sound better here on a $9 microphone than it does more recently with more sophisticated equipment now. I really think I want a new microphone. Ideally I would like a nice condenser microphone, but I am tied to this computer and it has a rather noisy computer fan. Maybe it was using ProTools (back when ProTools Free existed and ran on Windows 95), perhaps that had better effects than the Cubase I’m using now. Maybe my voice is growing older and not necessarily better. It is something to experiment with though.

And there’s the preoccupation with listening to African-American spiritual music. I downloaded a heap of recordings from Florida Memory and they have fascinated me in a myriad of ways. There’s something sincere and heartfelt in the performances. I experience a kind of energy from listening to these recordings and it’s infectious and I want to be imbued by that energy. This seems like a funny thing to say, especially since I’m agnostic at best. But, somehow, embracing that sort of agonisticism opened myself up to all of this stuff – these ideas, these artefacts, these songs, these stories, these paintings. I can appreciate them on a whole new level. Indeed on a level I don’t think I could have when I was still raging against the disgruntled parental figure deity who lived in my childhood and even later within my psyche. I think Richard Holloway articulated what I had long suspected. Namely that:

… religion is a work of the human imagination, it is a work of art…

So I guess in some ways I’m trying to distill some kernel of truth regarding religion in the same way I’m trying to distill some kernel of truth when it comes to creativity. I guess when it comes to religion I suspect that kernel might be found in the mystical traditions more than the minutia of literal verse or tribalistic custom. But even this is something I want to delve more deeply into on another ocassion.

And then there are all those blog entries that never quite seem to see the light of day. They stay forever drafts. Infact sometimes I’ll have to go back and check if something was written or published before I make reference to it (or if I just spent so much time thinking about it I assume it was written). I don’t know why they don’t materialise properly. Certainly sometimes things don’t ‘feel’ right. Sometimes I aspire to greatness and get things I don’t feel proud of. Blogging is one of those things that I find infinitely rewarding when I’m doing it (and after it’s done), but bringing myself to do it sometimes is a real battle. But then that might be true of anything that is important to me.

Anyway… what’s new with you?

[I've tried to embed ABC's video of the segment but their embed code doesn't seem to want to work. For the time being here's a bootleg YouTube embed that does actually seem to work...]

Sarah Silverman:

I cannot imagine wanting to get married right now at this time in America. And I can’t get my head around anyone – you guys were talking about it earlier… If you’re for equal rights, why would you get married right now? Why would you want to be in a club – it’s like joining a country club that doesn’t allow blacks or Jews. There’s no difference. Why would I want to join that club? It’s gross.

So until equal marriage, no marriage. Absolutely not. No way.

I don’t like feeling out of control and yet I’ve come to realise time and time again that I can’t control who I am attracted to. There’s a part of me that only wants to feel attracted to the right people. The people who are attracted in turn to me, who have some interest in me as a person, who are actually genuinely nice people. I’ve known people who have been quite horrified to know of my interest in them (and who were quite happy to vocalise this sentiment). I’ve known people who have used my feelings for them as emotional leaverage, manipulating me as they’d see fit. You just do stupid things in the presence of people who you are attracted to and who you might be in love with. You know they’re foolish when you’re doing them and at times you seem completely incapable of stopping yourself. If a confession is met with scorn, then take whatever foolishness factor you’ve been feeling and multiply it by a million. Then add two. No, really.

Then there is the relationship between sexiness and confidence. If you’re not feeling confident there’s a good chance you’re not exuding sexiness. Similarly sometimes people who are uber confident – perhaps overconfident – can seem really amazingly attractive. Even when they’re (let’s be frank) douches. Even when intellectually you know they are not nice people. Even when you suspect they drink kitten’s blood in their spare time and leave elderly people in the middle of busy highways.

Last night I was so bored that I logged into one of those awful dating websites. I had signed up more out of curiosity than anything else, and I check it out about once every six months. I was taken aback when a window popped up with a message from a local person saying something to the effect of, “Want to hook up? Ring this number.” I looked at that person’s profile and there was all this text explaining that they weren’t interested in anything except casual encounters. I was surprised by how little this appealed to me. ‘Hooking up’ with this person in particular, and ‘hooking up’ in general. I scoffed a little when (Australian Opposition Leader) Tony Abott suggested that a woman’s virginity was a gift that shouldn’t be given away lightly, and preferably not given away until marriage. But there is a part of me that really believes a sexual experience should be an expression of some emotional connection, ideally one of love. Infact in my mind if you’re just going through the experience solely for the sensation then… well a Madonna lyric (taken somewhat out of context) comes to mind: “You’ll do much better baby on your own.”

You know, it’s funny when I was working on this memoir I was writing I was secretly always looking for a moment in my life where everything would be resolved. Something that lent itself to a hopeful ending for the pretty tragic tale. And in my heart I think I was always expecting a happy ending. Infact I came to expect this so much that I would hang all my hopes on whatever new thing entered my life. Of course doing this usually meant I was a basketcase and that whatever new thing had entered my life was quickly doomed. And I would try something once and think, “Oh my god, this is so horrible. I’m never doing this again.”

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a holiday romance is just that and nothing more. And if you sort of know and understand those things you can appreciate them for what they are. However if you have convinced yourself that this is your ticket out of misery and into happiness and abundance – of course you’re doomed. I guess what I understood while writing bits and pieces of the memoir was that it wasn’t really that big a deal. To a normal person it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. I think a normal person would’ve brushed themselves off, uttered something about more fish being in the sea and got on with life. Increasingly I had a sense that what had occurred wasn’t that interesting. What made it interesting to me was my very pecuilar worldview. I thought the only way the story would work would be to allow people to see inside my head. This wasn’t really about unrequited love, rather it was an epic battle for love. I didn’t think I was lovable and I was searching for some evidence to support or challenge that expectation.

I tell you all this really just to say that you never know what the moment you’re having is, or what it is going to mean in the broader artwork that is your life at large. Because it takes time to reflect on the experiences you have and contextualise them – and sometimes, recontextualise them – just to see how they go together. I have this growing sense on this my 28th birthday that some of the things I thought were gravely important were actually not. When I reflect on certain friendships that evaporated into nothingness I am amazed at how frequently those friendships were just jumping off points to other friendships with other people, more enduring, more meaningful relationships. I used to lament that horrible things had happened to me and I only had a song or a blog post or whatever to show for it. But I am starting to think that perhaps far from being a consolation prize, that perhaps the artwork was the point of the whole thing all along. Because, honestly, being drawn back to writing and painting and singing has delivered me back to my own hand with a renewed sense of who I am. Once I took all the energy I was pouring into begging for acceptance and approval and affection and put it onto the page, things improved dramatically.